


In Which Cimorene Ventures into the Enchanted Forest, and Does Not Return for Some Time

by firstlovelatespring



Category: Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Patricia Wrede
Genre: F/F, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21782536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/pseuds/firstlovelatespring
Summary: It was possible that there were people like Morwen in Linderwall, but Cimorene had certainly never met one.
Relationships: Cimorene/Morwen
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	In Which Cimorene Ventures into the Enchanted Forest, and Does Not Return for Some Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorata/gifts).



> I hope you like this, lorata! Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thanks to [beatrice_otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatrice_otter) for beta reading.

“Hello, Morwen. I believe I’m stuck in a time loop,” Cimorene said.

Morwen simply nodded, and invited her and Alianora inside. 

Cimorene had never met anyone like Morwen. She tried to imagine what the people she knew in Linderwall would do if they found themselves at Morwen’s house. Cimorene’s sisters would shriek and whimper at even the _thought_ of the venomous plants Morwen kept in her garden. Cimorene’s mother would probably tell Morwen to comb her hair, and Cimorene’s father would undoubtedly have something to say about all of her cats. The court philosopher’s head would explode from trying to explain away Morwen’s magic with his facts and logic. And that wasn’t even to mention what her family would do if she announced to them that she was stuck in a time loop. It was possible that there were people like Morwen in Linderwall, but Cimorene had certainly never met one.

It had all started that morning (or several mornings ago, depending on how you looked at it). Cimorene and Alianora sat down around Morwen’s kitchen table to tell her the whole story. “Alianora and I brought you a copy of the fireproofing spell,” Cimorene began. She fished the spell and a jar of hens’ teeth out of her skirt pocket and placed them on the table. This whole time loop business was no excuse to break her promise. “We walked back through the Enchanted Forest, and through the Caves of Fire and Night. Woraug said he would be back at sundown, so we wanted to hurry through the caves, but nearly the whole time we were in there it was dark. I was very careful and I know we didn’t take any wrong turns, but when we reached the gates, something strange happened.”

Morwen nodded again. “Let me guess. You ended up back in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Yes!” Cimorene said. “How did you know?”

“You’re not the first person to get stuck here,” Morwen said grimly. “How many times have you looped around?”

“Four,” Cimorene answered. “I wanted to make sure I understood what was going on before I bothered you with any of it.”

“What does it mean?” Alianora asked. “And—” She looked around as if she wasn’t sure whether or not it was a rude question to ask a witch. “Can you break the spell?”

“I’ll do my best to help you,” Morwen said. “But the only surefire way to break the spell is to do what the Enchanted Forest wants. There’s a reason it’s keeping you here.”

Morwen and Alianora both turned to look at Cimorene. She frowned and tried to imagine what the Enchanted Forest could possibly want from her. All of Cimorene’s current business was in the Mountains of Morning—she was still in the middle of organizing Kazul’s library and cleaning out Kazul’s treasure room, and hated to think that she might leave those tasks unfinished. That seemed like a much more reasonable place to be stuck. And Cimorene could even imagine being cursed to repeat a day in the castle in Linderwall, as some sort of revenge for leaving there. But the Enchanted Forest? Before Cimorene met Kazul, she had never even set foot in there. In fact, this was only the second time she had traveled to the Enchanted Forest, and the only person she knew who lived there was Morwen. Cimorene could not fathom a reason for the cursed to stay in the forest.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s perfectly alright,” Morwen said. She stood up and smoothed down her robe. “I’ll look for my magic mirror, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Magic mirror?” Alianora said.

“No reason to go on looping until you figure it out yourself. That’s what most youngest sons and cursed knights do, and they practically all go mad doing it. Prince William of Murray spent a month looping through the Pass of Venomous Groundhogs before he put two and two together, and trust me, he was not pleasant to come across when I had to go and harvest groundhog eyeteeth for my garden.”

With that, Morwen vanished into her store room. Alianora leaned over her cider to whisper conspiratorially to Cimorene. “Morwen is so great!”

Cimorene blushed, although she was not quite sure why. “She is very capable.”

 _Capable_ was one way to describe Morwen. Cimorene could have said self-assured, reasonable, no-nonsense. And not that Cimorene considered herself the type of person to whom this sort of thing mattered, but Morwen was beautiful in an effortless sort of way. Cimorene could use a thousand adjectives and still not come close to describing Morwen perfectly. The best she could come up with was that she felt a sort of pull, that she enjoyed Morwen’s company more than perhaps anyone she had ever met. There were worse places than the Enchanted Forest to be stuck.

Alianora fixed Cimorene with a strange look, but Cimorene had no time to ask her about it before Morwen returned holding what had to be a magic mirror. It was dusty, and about the size of Kazul’s copy of _Historia Dracorum_ , although much thinner. Morwen laid it down on the table in front of her, and Cimorene jumped in surprise. Instead of reflecting Cimorene’s face back at her, the surface of the mirror was a cool, swirling black. Looking into it reminded Cimorene of the impenetrable darkness of the Caves of Fire and Night.

“This mirror is made of stone taken from the King’s Cave, and the frame is amber from the heart of the Enchanted Forest,” Morwen explained. “It’s what I use whenever I need to work with the Forest’s magic, instead of my own.”

Several of the cats had walked over from their various perches when Morwen took out the mirror, and now one nuzzled at Cimorene’s leg. “Your cats certainly seem to like it,” Cimorene said. She reached down to scratch the cat behind its ears.

“This sort of magic is like cream to them. Which is good, because I’ll need their help to activate the mirror. Come here, Fiddlesticks,” Morwen said, beckoning her cat. 

“What’s going to happen then?” Alianora asked.

“We’ll stand back, and Cimorene will look into the mirror and see what the forest wants her to see. I suggest you brace yourself, Cimorene. Even when it wants to speak to you, a message from the Enchanted Forest can be jarring.”

Cimorene did the best she could to prepare herself. Being sent on a quest would be alright, if a little inconvenient. Even having to live the rest of her life as a horned toad was something Cimorene could make peace with. The only thing she would be truly upset by is if the Forest was keeping her here to reunite with Therandil. Cimorene looked into the empty mirror and hoped as hard as she could that it would not be that.

Morwen clapped her hands once, and the cats lazing around the room arranged themselves in a semicircle in front of her, eyes wide open and tails swishing back and forth. Cimorene and Alianora watched as Morwen recited a limerick, and the dark black of the mirror began to swirl. Alianora and Morwen took two healthy steps back, and Cimorene remained in front of the mirror, as entranced as Fiddlesticks had been.

It was utterly silent in the room, and then Cimorene began to hear the sounds of the forest. Despite being indoors, she could hear birds chirp and creeks trickle over rocks, could hear a woodpecker hammering at a tree and ants crawling over a log. Being tuned in to the Enchanted Forest was beautiful, but overwhelming more than anything, so Cimorene looked down into the blackness, but found this time that she was able to look _through_ it.

Morwen was right: Cimorene was well and truly jarred. In the mirror she saw herself, dressed in white and walking down what was unmistakable a wedding aisle. Kazul and Alianora stood to the right of the altar, and Cimorene squinted to see the face of the groom. It wasn’t Therandil, or any of the knights who had come to rescue her, or any man at all. Standing at the altar waiting for her, absolutely radiant in white robes, was Morwen.

The bride in her vision walked on, but Cimorene jolted awake in Morwen’s kitchen. She shook her head to clear it, and let all the sounds of reality leak back in. The fire crackled in the hearth, and a cat purred somewhere beneath the table. Cimorene’s breathing evened out.

This was why the Enchanted Forest was keeping her here? Cimorene didn’t know what to think. She certainly liked Morwen—perhaps more than liked her; certainly differently than she liked Alianora or Kazul. But enough to marry her? Cimorene had left her life in Linderwall precisely because she didn’t want to end up somebody’s wife.

“Alianora, will you step outside with me for a moment?” Cimorene said. She apologized politely to Morwen for the interruption, and Alianora followed her onto the porch.

“What are you going to do?” Alianora asked after Cimorene recounted to her exactly what she had seen in the mirror.

“I don’t know. It’s certainly better than getting married to Therandil or some empty-headed knight.”

“Morwen’s not a knight,” Alianora agreed. “She’s not a prince, either. But she is a w—”

Cimorene did not think it polite to interrupt, but she did now. “A woman? I know, Alianora, it’s not done. But volunteering to be a dragon’s princess isn’t done either, and I’ve done that.”

“I was going to say a witch!” 

“Oh,” Cimorene said. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, then. Morwen is a witch, but we’ve both seen that knowing a witch is nothing but useful.”

Alianora looked confused. “If you don’t mind that she’s a woman or a witch, what’s wrong then? Don’t you like Morwen?”

That was the problem. If Cimorene didn’t like Morwen so much, she could just say so, and this would all be over with and done. It might take longer, but Cimorene was sure there was some way of communicating to the Enchanted Forest that it was wrong, thank you very much, and that Cimorene wasn’t interested.

“I don’t want to leave Kazul,” Cimorene said. “I like being a dragon’s princess, and I’m good at it! I don’t want to be somebody’s wife.”

“Cimorene!” Alianora cried. “None of this nonsense! Morwen would never make you leave Kazul to cook and clean and embroider all day. I think she likes you _because_ you’d hate that.”

Cimorene looked at Alianora, and then at the sun already hanging low in the sky. Her friend had a point, and there was no use looping around again. Every reason Cimorene had to forget what she saw in the magic mirror was gone, and she had a feeling she knew exactly what the Enchanted Forest wanted her to do.

Cimorene turned around and knocked on the door. Morwen opened it almost immediately. “Well?”

“Morwen,” Cimorene announced, “The Enchanted Forest believes that we should get married.”

Morwen raised her eyebrows. “Is that a proposal?”

Cimorene was not sure that Morwen would say yes. But she hadn’t been sure when she had followed the advice of a talking frog to escape from Therandil, or when she volunteered to be Kazul’s princess, or when she walked along Antorell’s invisible ledge. Since her first fencing lesson, it was the risks Cimorene had taken that made her life worth living. She was not sure that Morwen would say yes, but Cimorene said, “It’s a proposal.”

“Then, I accept.” Morwen removed a pair of garden shears from her sleeve and cut a flower from her garden. It had bright yellow petals and a sort of orange bit toward the center that looked like an egg yolk. She handed the flower to Cimorene. “I know it’s no ring, but this is a Carnivorous Brideweed. Pretty, and they eat cave mites.”

Cimorene held it slightly farther from her face. It was a useful gift, but she didn’t want to take any chances with a plant that had _carnivorous_ in the name. “Thank you.”

“So improper,” Alianora joked.

“Well, you know me,” Cimorene said, taking Morwen’s hand. “I never have been one for doing things the proper way.”


End file.
